Archives for May 2006

Positive Impact

I’ve been thinking all day about a story Tom Peters used to tell back in the early 90s. It went something like this. Bear with me, oral history changes in the telling.

Tom Peters at the Steel Company

It was during the time all of the big steel companies, such as US Steel. were suffering, hurting. One small company — small for the steel business — about 1200 employees was doing fine, growing as I recall the story. Tom Peters went out to Ohio to speak with the president of the company. He wanted to know how this company could be beating the odds. Then he found out something even more interesting. The company had no job descriptions. As I remember, Tom quoted the dialogue this way.

Tom said something like, “How can you run a company of 1200 people with no job descriptions?”

The president answered, “We’re trying a new management technique. We talk to each other.”

Forgive me, Tom, if I got the details slightly skewed. It’s clear that I got the point. I’ve passed it on for years, with your name attached.

Synchronicity

Just now when I went to Tom Peters’ blog to find a link, I found this one. It asks whether the great ideas of the past, such as those of Tom Peters had a positive impact. Click the title to read the short post about it.

1 Guy Told the World About It

Last night at Open Comment Night, we had another great and rambling conversation. Mike Dunn of Nomadic Audio stopped by to see what was going on. He live blogged the Open Comments Night. Click the title to see what he said.

Highlights

Many thoughts were shared between blogger friends. New blogger friendships formed. Art was defined. Plans were made. Marketing ideas were discussed. Stories were told. A good time was had.

Learn Everything

We all want that ability to be able to see the next big trend before it happens — what people will be wanting, doing, needing, going to, and buying NEXT. We want to be there ready and waiting for those customers.

Some folks can see that next trend and hit it fairly often. No one can do it 100%. No one can get any customer base to behave 100% predictably.

Good morning, Class.
Find the next trend. Oh yes, 97.9% of you wll fail this test.

Net Neutrality Links

In the comments to that post, I said I really didnÃ¢â¬â¢t have an issue with network services differentiated by ability to pay for bandwidth, as long consumers had access to the same services, at whatever bandwidth. That is, IÃ¢â¬â¢m not opposed to tiering quality of service based on price. Tiering access to services based on price is a different issue.

In a new comment, Richard Bennett points out that bandwidth is not the only service differentiator.

ThatÃ¢â¬â¢s correct. IÃ¢â¬â¢m stating my desire that Ã¢â¬â where technically possible Ã¢â¬â all customers at all price levels have access to the same services.

What stands in the way of all this are the Bells. They insist that the phone lines built under regulated monopoly are “theirs,” that no one else (OK, maybe a cable franchise) should be providing that service, and that they should be allowed to use their monopoly power for their own private enrichment.

Into this argument steps Bob Frankston. The Visicalc co-founder has written a satire, in the tradition of Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, called Paying by the Stroll.

I’ve been immersed in so-called tele-communications issues for a long time but I haven’t posted too much lately because I’m not satisfied with net neutrality and am trying to figure out how to explain that the problem is more fundamental (as in “Telecom Phrase”). How come I have to plead for neutrality when we’re talking about infrastructure that we should own?

One of the classic marketing clichs is that people don’t buy the drill, they buy the hole. A good marketer or, for that matter, politician, knows that people want solutions rather than having to worry about every detail themselves. I must’ve been thinking too much about those who want to do us too much good when I went to sleep last night Ã¢â¬Â¦

New from Liz Strauss & GeniusShared Press

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The other day I was having a conversation with a friend. We were sharing stories from days gone by about each of our lives. We hopped from one story to the next — based on what each of us were sharing. It was really an incredible discussion as we were each learning from the other […]

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I felt the more embarrassing fear of people’s judgment. When I decided it was time to write again, I avoided the computer for the longest time. On the rare occasion that I managed to sit myself down to write, I’d get caught up answering email or reading articles around the web, not doing writing I […]